If you want to stop your Dachshund barking, you have probably found out that it is not easy! Dachshunds were originally bred to hunt badgers, trained to bark to alert their owners to potential prey or to strangers around the house or kennel. This behavior is still evident as they often think that they own their surroundings barking at strangers in the house, yard, and even walking or driving past in the street.

Before you can stop your Dachshund barking, you need to understand why dogs bark as well as what barking you can stop and what you cannot.

What Causes Dogs to Bark?

There are numerous reasons why dogs bark, including:

To warn intruders into their territory

To alert their owners

When excited, frustrated, scared or angry

When injured or sick

Compulsive barking

Remember, while you can reduce your dachshunds barking, it is not possible to totally stop it, as barking is part of their nature. No matter how well you train them, barking is one of the main ways that dachshund’s express themselves.

How to Stop Your Dachshund Barking

If your Dachshund is barking excessively you need to discover the reason why. In the majority of cases the barking is excessive and can be controlled with training. The first thing you should do is answer these questions:

What does your Dachshund bark at?
Is there any particular time of day when they bark?
Can you identify anything that starts them barking?
Shouting at a Dachshund who is alarmed or warning intruders in their territory will not work. In fact, given their independent, strong willed nature, shouting may result in other types of aggression as your Dachshund doesn’t understand why they can’t protect their territory.

In this situation, instead of telling your Dachshund to stop barking, you need to change their environment so that they don’t need to protect their territory, and hence don’t need to bark. These changes may include you becoming pack leader and in charge of protecting the territory. You can also simply stop your dog seeing things in their territory.

Stop Anxiety Based Barking

Anxiety based barking can be a significant problem. Your Dachshund is barking because they want to be with you, sometimes barking from the time you leave until you return. This is a behavior that you have previously rewarded them for. Think about it, you come home and your dachshund is really excited to see you. You stop what you are doing and pay attention to them, inadvertantly rewarding them for barking while you were gone. To break this cycle, try coming home and carrying on your routine, ignoring your dog for around 15 minutes. In doing so, your dog will stop making the link between you coming through the door and them getting attention.

A great way to stop your Dachshund barking is to teach them to bark on command and also to be quiet on command. Having them respond to a command gives you command of when they can bark. Teaching bark on command helps you dachshund to figure out when barking is acceptable and when it is not. Remember, the aim here is not to stop all barking, just inappropriate barking. I’m sure you will agree that if someone was breaking in your house you would want your Dachshund to bark and alert you.

Dachshund barking can cause problems with your neighbors. By taking control early on, using techniques such as those detailed here, you’ll never have to worry about your neighbors complaining.

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